by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Jacksonville can pay now or pay later for a new county courthouse that will suit the needs of a growing city, Circuit Court Judge A.C. Soud said Tuesday.
Soud told the City Council’s Audit Committee that he had witnessed first-hand the struggles of cities like Orlando that had attempted to build a courthouse on the cheap. The committee heard from Soud and former chief administrative officer Sam Mousa before nixing an ordinance that called for a construction halt on the over budget courthouse.
Opponents to the courthouse’s current design have suggested the City scrap the plans. Critics on the Council and in the media questioned whether a high-rise design — similar to the U.S. Courthouse — would lower construction costs while taking up less downtown real estate.
However Soud said Orlando had already outgrown its 30-story courthouse six years after its opening. Although the Orlando building occupies only four city blocks — the county courthouse could take up seven — Soud said the high-rise design left the city with nowhere to go.
“These people who are saying we should build a high–rise; How tall should the courthouse be? Would they want a 40–story courthouse? A 45–story courthouse?” said Soud.
With no room left inside the building, Soud said Orlando is now forced to spend $1.2 million to build two off-site courtrooms. He said that’s double what the City would spend to build on-site.
Other high-rise design disadvantages, Soud said, are its lack of floor space and its dependence on elevators. While all courtrooms in Jacksonville’s current building would be accessible by escalators, Soud said a high-rise design requires elevator access to floors above the fifth. Soud said a high-rise evacuation would result in “chaos,” as jurors, lawyers, judges and prisoners all bolted down the same stairwells.
Soud dismissed comparisons between the recently-opened U.S. Courthouse and its county counterpart as “ludicrous and foolish.” Soud said the county building would be staffed by 350 clerk’s office employees vs. 24 federal. He said more than 5,000 people would pass through the county building each day compared to about 40 in the federal building. The county courthouse, he said, would have to watch over 150 prisoners a day compared to seven in the federal courthouse.
Soud’s voice gathered volume as his 20-minute presentation went on. He saved his loudest tone to dispute rumors that the legal community had been leaning on the City to provide a lavish building at taxpayer expense.
“The innuendoes being dropped in the papers about private, back-room dealings are outrageous,” said Soud. As the judge closed his comments he pounded on the lectern with enough force to knock out his microphone.
Council member Jerry Holland took issue with the judge’s comments in questions directed to Mousa. Holland said the Council’s questions were prompted by constituent complaints. Holland said the Council needed to tell taxpayers how the courthouse price tag escalated from the original $192 million to $232 million.
Mousa said that Soud’s comments were not implicating the Council, but were rather directed at rumors circulating in the media.
“We’ve all heard the comments — I don’t know where they came from, but they’re out there — that there was a wink and a nod in selecting Cannon [the project architect]. That’s dangerous business, and that’s what I believe the judge was referring to.”